Hamburg - Intense social networking with family and friends helps improve your intelligence and memory more than any other method, according to German researcher Siegfried Lehrl of the University of Erlangen.

Quoted in the latest edition of the magazine Vital, Lehrl said that while mind games and puzzles such as Sudoku improve memory, social interaction activates the brain on several levels with the positive effects becoming especially visible during the course of a lifetime.

Several studies found that people who meet regularly with other people had much better cognitive abilities or brain-based skills needed for the simplest to the most complex task compared to a group with less social interaction, the report said.

Bonn, Germany - Russian steel group Mechel is on the verge of taking over a German steel merchant, HBL Holding, financial-market sources confirmed to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Wednesday.

The Moscow newspaper Komersant had reported earlier that Mechel outbid the other potential buyers in an auction and had applied to Germany's competition authority, the Federal Cartel Office, in Bonn for merger permission.

Berlin - Plans for a controversial museum dealing with the ordeal of post-Second-World-War German refugees were approved Wednesday by Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet in Berlin.

Work may begin within weeks to set up the permanent exhibition in a government office block in the capital's Anhalter Bahnhof area.

Poland and the Czech Republic worried the museum would portray them as villains. Millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from eastern Europe as borders were revised after Nazi Germany's defeat. Warsaw has now granted a cautious blessing to the museum.

Berlin - Merchants placed record orders worth more than 3 billion euros at the IFA electrical-goods fair which was ending Wednesday in Berlin, organizers said.

IFA, previously an annual consumer-electronics fair, expanded this year to embrace home appliances such as washing machines. The fair organizers said the total order volume was up 10 per cent from a year ago.

The Berlin fairgrounds leased a record 122,000 square metres of booth space to exhibitors, erecting temporary pavilions to cope with the rush. Visitor numbers since Friday had totalled 220,000 by mid- morning on Wednesday, on a par with one year ago.